Page:The Melanesians Studies in their Anthropology and Folklore.djvu/154

132 Turivatu; if in the distant sea; if on high in the sun, or in the moon; if thou dwellest inland or by the shore, Manoga! come hither and eat thy tutu!' This Manoga belongs particularly to the Manukama or Lahi division of the Florida people, each division, kema, having a tindalo whom they worship as peculiarly their own, and whom they vaguely call their ancestor; Polika of the Nggaombata, Barego of the Kakau, Kuma of the Honggokama, Sisiro of the Himbo, Tindalo tambu, whose personal name is not known, of the Honggokiki. As these divisions are intermixed in the villages, though one is generally more largely represented in any one of them than the others, sacrifices are offered in each village or group of villages to each of these tindalo of the divisions; and the sacrificer is the man who knows the particular leaves and creepers and species of dracæna, and ginger and shavings of a tree, and words of mana with which the tindalo is approached, knowledge which he has received from his predecessors. The sacrificer then of the dominant family division of the place is in fact the ostensible chief, the sacrificers of the less numerous divisions are minor chiefs. With the worship of these tindalo of larger and wider cultus is combined by the sacrificer that of lesser and more private keramo of fighting whom he knows. The local tindalo at the time in vogue, such as Ganindo, occupies a middle place between the general and particular objects of sacrificial worship. There are also the tindalo known to every one, who are particularly powerful in certain spheres, as Daula in the sea, and Pelu, one of the vigona, in gardens, and Hauri in fighting; but only those who know the proper way to approach them can sacrifice to them before a voyage or planting or a fight.

There were two general sacrifices in the year, in which the people of a village took part. The first, the bigo, was when the canarium nut, ngali, so much used in native cookery, was ripe. None could be eaten till the sacrifice of the first-fruits was offered. The knowledge of the way to do this, and